A View From the Barge

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Before the play makes it to the barge, Maggie Horan and Jacob Dabby run through lines at a Brooklyn daycare center.CreditIdris Solomon for The New York Times

By Helene Stapinski

May 16, 2018

A tragedy unfolded last week in a preschool classroom in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, which included an unhealthy love obsession, illegal immigrants and a violent standoff, all staged amid blocks, hula hoops and children’s books.

Members of Brave New World Repertory Theater were rehearsing “A View From the Bridge,” Arthur Miller’s play set in working-class Brooklyn, which after years of revivals in other places, has finally landed back where it was born — in working-class Brooklyn.

The play, which starts previews on May 31, will be presented on a barge in Red Hook, not far from where the action in the drama takes place. Rehearsals have been scattered, though, wherever the cast could find the space, including the Cortelyou Early Childhood Center and the producer’s living room in Ditmas Park. And recently, there have been a few rehearsals on the actual Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge, which is anchored in Red Hook Channel adjacent to Fairway.

“Don’t be afraid to fight,” shouted the director, Alex Dmitriev, on the third go around of a scene between the young characters Catherine and Rodolpho. “This is a lover’s quarrel.” Scripts with yellow highlighted lines were strewn about. Props wouldn’t be brought in until tech week around May 23, so actors were improvising with preschool furniture and toys. At one point, a custodian — not in the cast — wheeled a noisy bucket and mop through the action, causing the director to stop the scene.

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“Don’t be afraid to fight,” the director, Alex Dmitriev, instructed actors in a lover’s quarrel.CreditIdris Solomon for The New York Times

“Am I off set?” asked Claire Beckman, playing the character Beatrice, as she glanced down at a tiny red chair marking the stage perimeter.

“Yes,” answered Joe Gioco from the imaginary wings. (He was playing the narrator and the lawyer, Alfieri.) “You would be on the lap of an audience member right about now.”

The plot involves a 1950s Brooklyn longshoreman named Eddie Carbone who is obsessed with his 17-year-old orphaned niece, Catherine, who in turn is in love with an illegal Italian immigrant named Rodolpho. Eddie, fueled by jealous rage, calls the immigration officials on Rodolpho, turning the Brooklyn community against him and leading to his own demise.

Brave New World, known for its immersive Brooklyn productions, has staged “To Kill a Mockingbird” on Ditmas Park porches, “Street Scene” on a Park Slope sidewalk and “On the Waterfront” on the very same waterfront barge museum where this play will be staged. Ten performances are planned on the 90-seat barge through June 24.

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The rights to put on the play were granted only after high-profile Broadway productions finished their runs.CreditIdris Solomon for The New York Times

Ms. Beckman, who is also producing the play, had been trying for eight years to get the rights to “A View From the Bridge” but was stymied by Broadway productions like the 2009 version that landed Scarlett Johansson a Tony Award and a more recent stripped-down interpretation directed by Ivo van Hove with a mostly British cast.

But the wait was worth it, Ms. Beckman said, and the timing is perfect.

“This is an incredible time to do ‘A View From the Bridge,’” said Ms. Beckman between scenes. “I’ve wanted to do it for a long time. Now immigrants are being rounded up in Sunset Park as we speak. I can imagine how Arthur Miller would feel about it all. It would break his heart.”

Moments later, Ms. Beckman was rehearsing her own scene, playing the exasperated wife of Eddie. She nervously milled about the stage, trying to find the right combination of motion and stillness as she argued with her stage husband and banged around boxes of crayons — a stand-in for boxes of Christmas decorations, which the character is supposed to be packing up in her Brooklyn tenement.

In a break in the action, Ms. Beckman told the stage manager Rachael Houser to order up a Nativity crèche from the prop master. “We need all the usual suspects and the manger,” she shouted. “Baby Jesus, all the animals, the kings.”

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Richard O’Brien, born and raised in Queens, plays Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman.CreditIdris Solomon for The New York Times

“Good idea,” said the director.

Thirty years ago, Ms. Beckman played the young Catherine, directed by this same director — Mr. Dmitriev — at the Philadelphia Drama Guild. Then in 2000, she met Mr. Miller, who signed her copy of the play in Brooklynese: “Hope you did it good!” Mr. Miller scrawled on the title page.

Several of the cast members are New York born and bred, giving the play an authenticity — and a thick accent — it has lacked in more recent incarnations. “Talk” is pronounced “TAWK.” “Italy” is pronounced “IT-lee.” “Her” is “HUH,” and the collective you, of course, is “youse.”

The local flavor extends to the theater itself, anchored off the waterfront where the action in the play unfolds. The company has worked with David Sharps, who runs and lives on the barge, since 2007, when they did a staged reading of “The School for Wives,” the first of several productions on which they collaborated.

“We had been wanting to do something together again for a while,” Ms. Beckman said. “So when I got the rights for this, I just approached David and he was thrilled.”

He pointed out that barges in New York have a long history as showboats. “It’s so great to see it come alive with the excitement of a play about a couple in Red Hook. It’s very authentic.”

Ms. Beckman agreed. “We’ve had the Hollywood cast with Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber and then the English cast,” she said. “Now it’s Brooklyn.”

The Particulars

Project: A View from the Bridge produced on a Red Hook barge

Site: The Waterfront Museum at 290 Conover Street, across from Sunny’s Bar, with rehearsals at various locations in Ditmas Park